Catch me I'm falling.

9 AM. Wide awake. Can’t sleep. I’ve got butterflies already for our first adventure in Interlaken, Switzerland. I’m going skydiving for the first time ever with a few of my Bethel friends (Jake, Annika and Laura). 11:45 rolls around and we say our goodbyes to our friends, including the usual banter of “I was the last person to see you alive!” and “Hope to see you back in one piece!” These conversations didn’t really do anything for the nerves for me, but at the same time, I actually contemplated what would happen if I died on this stunt. I actually thought about writing out a will/goodbye letter and sticking it in my pocket as a goodbye to my family and friends back in the states.

They call our names and we climb aboard with some other adventure seekers: 4 Australian tourists and a auto-parts supplier from Detroit named Josh. I hit up a conversation with him about business and told him we were studying international business while we are here abroad. After a beautiful 20 minute ride to the airfield we met our Tandem masters. Mine was from Australia (named Mick, how perfect) and began suiting me up and told me that we were going to be jumping in the 3^rd group. The following was our initial exchange:

Mick: so Spencer, this is your first jump? Are you nervous?

Me: Yeah, a little.

Mick: You should be, you’re jumping with me!

Me: How long have you been doing this?

Mick: Well, I started last week. (brief pause, laughter) No, I’ve been doing this for 11 years.

After this came the wait. The wait for your group to go up was just adding to the anticipation. It was pretty encouraging to see everyone landing and just having a blast from the adrenaline rush. We saw the first group go up, jump and then land in front of us and then the 2^nd went and came down and all of a sudden the plane is at the end of the runway and Mick is calling me over. The way we sat down in the plane was the reverse order we jumped out. Mick and I hopped in last. Guess that makes me the guinea pig aka the first to jump. The taxi ride and initial flight took only 15 minutes and we were above the clouds, peaks of the Swiss Alps breaking out around us. Mick motioned to the pilot, the engine was cut and the door slid open.

We had covered what was going to happen several times up until this point, but it sort of went out of my mind because I was jumping out of an airplane. Mick told me to tilt my head back, smile and after five seconds, to spread my hands out and he would take care of the rest. In order to get out of the plane and to not smack our heads on the wing, we stood on a small step, did a 180 degree turn while stepping off and then did a back flip into the open sky. The freefall from 14,000 feet lasted only 45 seconds but we reached speeds of 120 mph. It was hard to even get breaths or hear anything but the rushing of the wind around us. Mick reached his hands out in front of me and gave the thumbs up and pointed at my harness. This was the second part of the instruction, the chute deployment. Mick would pull our chute as soon as we broke through the cloud ceiling. I literally was face to face with the thick puffy white clouds you usually only see from airplane windows. I reached my hands out to touch them, and just like that, whoosh. Silence. I could hear myself cursing just from the adrenaline rush. Mick had the controls of the hangliding chute open and we were about 4,000 feet above the ground. He steered us around toward the landing strip and dipped us around. I told him he had a pretty amazing job. He replied: “It’s just another day at the office.” After about 4 minutes of some amazing views of the mountains and lakes of Interlaken, we lined up at the landing strip and slid in safely, right alongside our friends.

The day before, when we were travelling from Freiburg, I had my iPod on shuffle with some new music I loaded on for this trip. I found myself listening to this song called “Catch me from Falling”, a song from the new Broadway musical ‘Next to Normal’, recommended by my accompanist, Emily. As I was listening, I couldn’t help but resonate with these lyrics:

Catch me I’m falling / Flying headfirst into fate.

Face what you fear / soon it comes clear,

Catch me I’m falling / Catch me before it’s too late.

The strange thing was, even though I was nervous/really excited to skydive, I found the most comfort in those lyrics as I was standing on the platform outside of the plane at 14,000 feet. I sang that verse, and let my ‘fate’ up in the hands of God (and Mick) and stepped out of a perfectly good airplane.

As the slogan of the Outdoor Interlaken adventures company reads: Get started living. I like to think I said “Yes” to life on my adventure here in Interlaken.

Going forward, looking back.

The sun is a fiery orange and the sky is purple and pink with the small villages of southwestern Germany as the photogenic backdrop. The Black Forest is barely visible in the distance and its dark mountains stretch forever, unyielding along the right side of the train. The countryside is whizzing past me. I already have said how wonderful the train system is here in Germany and throughout most of Europe. Since I’m not yet a train riding master, I am still fascinated by the configuration of seats. They all don’t face the same way, and since sometimes the trains change direction when they leave the station, you aren’t necessarily guaranteed a forward-facing seat. You can guess how I ended up sitting on my trip to Interlaken, Switzerland this weekend. Going forward, looking back.

The first few minutes I kept peering out my window and trying to get some semblance of where we were headed. After a while, that quickly became foolish so I resorted to just relaxing into my comfortable seat on the express train and seeing what our train was passing. It’s difficult to sit still sometimes, but even more difficult when you can’t see what’s ahead of you. We are a very forward thinking culture. For example, during the day, most often my American friends and I ask each other “What are we going to do tonight?” We need to know what our options are, decide what the best one is and look forward to the next decision and figure that out. My friends from other countries here at the Goethe always ask me what we did: How was your weekend, did you go out to eat last night? They want to know what we have done and what we are doing, instead of what we are going to do. I’m going to start working on changing that around. I want to spend more time living in the moment, instead of always basing my decision on what I am going to do.

"You should speak German here..."

Ever imagine what the Tower of Babel was like? Let me introduce you to the Goethe-Institut, my university for the next 3 weeks here in Freiburg. Students from all over the world come to this school to study the German language and culture. Today I met/heard only a select few people speaking English. Just sitting at my desk at the window I could hear at least 5 different languages. Others in our group met students from Uganda, Michigan, Chile and I’ve seen several Asian and Indian students as well. From about 7PM on, there was a massive social event. It was someone’s birthday (the only reason I knew was the off key singing of happy birthday, in English mind you) and there was music and loud talking for several hours. Then like clockwork, at 10PM, quiet hours started and it has been oddly still ever since.

I’m sitting in my own dorm room at the “Guest House” of Goethe-Institut. I’m on the first floor in a corner room. We each have our own bathroom and fridge, but since I’m on the corner I am close to the wireless internet, a perk! It was so nice to completely unpack my bag and store it in a CLOSET! Pretty basic furnishings but a desk and a bed are pretty much all I need. I’m feeling pretty comfortable with all the mod IKEA accessories and lamps.

We travelled to and arrived in Freiburg as a small group of 7 without the aid of our professor, who is attending each of the groups individually over the next couple weeks. We asked for directions and began a short, but tiring walk with our belongings on our back to the Institut, about 5 minutes away. It is rather hot here, going to be 84 tomorrow, but will cool off through the rest of the week, down to the low 60’s, perfect sweatshirt weather. At the Institut, we were placed into our classes and got our room keys and were settled in. By this time it was 4PM and we were all very hungry as we didn’t eat anything after Breakfast. So we explored an area our taxi driver from the Institut to the “Guest House” called ‘Food Paradise’. We found a pizza place and woofed down some food quick. We stopped in to buy groceries for breakfast food (milk, frosted flakes, juice, bananas, cookies J) and basically settled into our rooms. We were all a little exhausted from our 4 hour train trek today, plus about 2 hours of orientation and first day stuff at the Institut. We zoned out by getting on the internet, facebook, email and blogging. I started to look at some options for free travel coming up in a few weeks. It was just nice to read the small town newspaper online for a change and get reconnected to the world.

Tomorrow is the first day of class for our German Intensive program. We have class Monday-Friday 1:30-6 with a few breaks. Otherwise, it’s all German. I’m excited to sleep in and have mornings free, but by 6 tomorrow I’m sure I’ll be wiped out and hungry. We’re on our own for food for the next 3 weeks (we can spend as little or as much as we want, it’s coming out of our own pocket, not budgeted by the trip) so we’re looking up some low cost options. We’ve also eyed an interesting spot. There is an Afghani restaurant literally 5 feet from the door to the Guesthouse, and peeking in the windows it looks like a pretty sweet place.

My friend that fell is in good spirits. She had surgery yesterday and is recovering. She should be out of the hospital on Saturday and fully recovered in 3-4 weeks.

Yesterday, we had a tour of the city from some of the ‘Zivis’ (basically an RA/TA) from Goethe. They showed us some of the important sites, including several historic city gates, the giant Munster church (funded completely by citizens) and took us on a brief hike up the mountain to where an old castle stood. Here, there are breathtaking views of the city, the Black Forest, and one can even see the French border in the distance.

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I have now had about 18 hours of German Instruction. It is amazing the progress we are able to make by only taking this one course. The professor speaks only in German (the occasional English to explain something we are clearly not getting) so it forces your brain to figure out what he is saying in some fashion. We are conjugating verbs now and writing full paragraphs in German. I never thought I would be taking a German course, and here I am learning and speaking it in Germany. I think that is one of the advantages to studying here: there is a big opportunity to practice right outside your school. Ordering food, talking with people, reading signs and papers, etc.

This weekend we talked about travelling to France, but I think we are just going to explore our own city a little more. We have planned to go next weekend into Switzerland and meet up with some other Bethel people and have some fun there. Thanks for all your comments and emails, It’s been just a week and a half and it feels as if I’ve been here for ages now.

20 interesting things about Germany

1. Drinking in public is absolutely ok.

2. Putting feet on the opposite seat in the trains is strictly prohibited.

3. The countryside from a train window is breathtaking.

4. You have to pay to use a public toilet, but said public toilets are luxurious and spotless.

5. The food is hearty and delicious; bread, meat and cheese are served even at breakfast.

6. Waiters are paid very well and their tip is figured into the price of the food already (Value Added Tax) so a tip of about 5% is customary. 10% is considered extremely generous.

7. The price of a beer is cheaper than the price of a Coke.

8. Most Germany youth speak English and love hip hop music, McDonald’s and American clothes.

9. There is a giant church in every city. Guaranteed.

10. In a grocery store, there are two prices for bottled drinks. The first price is for the price of the liquid, and then there is an additional price for the bottle. You get that money back when you bring the bottle back.

11. No ice is served in drinks at restaurants. Ever.

12. If you ask for water at a restaurant, it is sparkling mineral water. You have to ask for it “still”.

13. You can bring your dog anywhere, anytime, even in a building.

14. Every car is tiny. I haven’t seen anything bigger than a station wagon. It is a parallel parking dream.

15. Men do their hair. Euro-hawks and Mullets abound.

16. Everybody smokes.

17. The bread is hard. Like rock hard.

18. Did I mention the countryside is beautiful?

19. Carts at the grocery store cost 1 euro. Suddenly your arms seem able to do the job.

20. Every kebab is different.

I am now located in Freiburg for 3 weeks. I will be taking intensive German courses for about 4 hours Monday through Friday. Class starts tomorrow!